00NCTA

National Cable Et Telecommunications
Email: [email protected]
Fax: +91-11-26922347
Association
Website: www.ncta.in
00 NCTA
BY SPEED POSTAD
To
The Hon'ble Prime Minister of India
7 Race Course Road
New Delhi -1100 01
The Hon'ble Prime Ministeroflndia
Prime Ministers
Office
South Block, Raisina Hill
New Delhi-1100 11
Respected Hon'ble Sir,
I am really pained to write this letter to your office when the entire country is facing issues
of rampant corruption,
deterioration
system of governance,
of social values and a complete collapse in
the few issues that have come in the notice
the
are- so much
disheartening for the people who use to feel proud being an Indian and have been making
all efforts to have an honest way of livelihood and been fulfilling all duties and obligations
as a citizen of this country.
This period we all are witnessing today is the worst time of living and doing business in this
country where we see all around us corruption at all levels, blatant misuse of power,
violation of all rules and legislations with no fear of being questioned for your acts, leave
aside the chances of being caught and prosecuted under the law.
Here I would like to briefly enumerate few observations made that will eventually have
serious ramification effecting millions of consumers
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citizens, investors, entrepreneurs,
businesses and the whole nation will be badly affected, if still we keep silent and don't make
any serious efforts to rectify and remedy the deliberate mistakes / violations made by the
people who are answerable to the nation and carry a responsibility over their heads to look
into the interest of the public at large.
I would have made this following revelations to the concerned departments in question who
have till now failed to do their entrusted jobs like
Income Tax, SEBI,TDSAT,Competition
Commission of India, TRAI "Telecom Regulatory Authority of India" and even officials of the
Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, but as the system prevails nowadays The officers of
these concerned departments would have found another opportunity to make good money
where based on my complaint! Information the concerned company or the individual would
have been summoned and some deal made in exchange of monetary benefits to close the
matter without any further investigation being conducted. "Unfortunately
this is the true
picture and the state of affairs in our Country today"
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NCTA Regd. Office: Unit 19, CSC[DDA] Sukhdev Vihar, New Delhi- 110025 [India]
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The reason I am forced to write to the Head of the Nation, who I feel is most honest, and have been
very instrumental and respected for the able Governance delivered so far and most probably not
aware of how things are developing today that will have ramifications effecting each and every
citizen of this country eventually.
W-
In my ultimate effort of seriously hoping that your kind office will intervene and look into this
matter on priority before it gets too late. I am herein stating all the facts of the matter and where
the concerned departments have failed to act upon for reasons best known to them.
1. Amazing Indians continue to amass wealth by cheating the system and the poor investors.
A bunch of employees headed by their leader Mr. S.N Sharma employed by a MSO Hathway
Cable & Datacom Limited left the company along with all the employees working under him in
Delhi, collaborated an idea with another employee
Network
at that time.
Mr. Sameer Manchanda CFO of TV 18
S.N Sharma asked Mr. Sameer Manchanda to float a public limited
company where he will play an important role of getting the Hathway cable operators and
independent MSOs to sign some understanding and create fake valuations for the company by
misrepresenting the customer base and then based on these fake asset valuations and
misrepresenting in the financial statement / documents of the newly incorporated company
DEN
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Digital Entertainment Network Limited"
the company misrepresenting about their
association with the TV 18 Network Group, brings out an IPO and collected billions of rupees
from the Indian public investors.
With all this Indian public investor money collected they
contacted the CEOof Star TV Mr. Uday Shankar and asked him to give all the rights for the
STARTV channels for distribution to them on a fixed minimum guarantee of about 1000 Crores
per year, that gave an advantage to this new entity where they forced many Hathway affiliated
operators
and the independent MSO and Cable operators
to join with them otherwise the
STARTV channels will not be provided to their networks for redistribution to their customers.
In this entire business operation been conducted over a period of last 3-4 years now
Mr. S.N
Sharma has amassed personal wealth of around Rs.3500 Crores with properties, Farm Houses,
investment in real estate business here in India and abroad.
Where he been collecting cash
from the various cable operators in the country to the tune of almost Rs. 80-100 crores per
month while under declaring lesser number of operators and customers to the company that
has public investor investments.
Even till recently when the Cable TV digitization law was
implemented This Company DEN Limited ordered and imported millions of digital STB(Set Top
Boxes) from the money collected on the IPO whereas these STBs where distributed to the
customers only insisting a cash payment of Rs.800- 1000 for each STBand all the cash collected
(almost
Rs. 150 crore from just
Delhi, Mumbai
and Kolkotta where digitization
was
implemented under Phase-I) was siphon off by Mr. S.N Sharma and the promoters of M/s.
Digital Entertainment Network Limited.
The records and financial statements will again be
manipulated; the poor public investors of the said company will remain as they are, while the
promoters and the employee's of this company are having an amazing time of their life.
WEREAS,
THE
INCOME
TJY(,
SEBI,
DIRECTORATE
OF
REVENUE
INTELLIGENCE
&
ENFORECEMENT DIRECTORATE WILL JUST REMAIN MUTE SPECTATORS.
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2. The Mega Media Merger of STAR DEN and lEE TURNER
After closely watching the success story of STARTV after its association with DEN that had
increased the subscription revenues of STAR TV Group by more than double each year The
erstwhile ZEETurner Private limited was approached by the STARTV CEO Mr. Uday Shankar,
while Mr. Rupert Murdoch company was facing problems in UK amidst lot of controversies
there.
Here STARDEN and ZEETURER decides to form a joint venture in order to take advantage of
this absolute monopoly being created with joint distribution of their TV channels and to also
give undue advantage to their own TV Channel distribution platforms
like TATA SKYand DISH
TV the DTH operators and their own MSO Cable TV companies WWIL
Digital Entertainment Network Limited"
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Siti Cable" and DEN
that have pan India presence. When this joint
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mega
merger" Media Pro Enterprise India Pvt Ltd" was formed in mid 2011 a suo moto enquiry was
initiated
and conducted by the CCI "Competition
realised that
this merger is anti competitive
Commission of India"
and will result
in
as they must have
a complete vertical
monopolization of this TV Channel distribution business. But somehow after almost an year of
enquiry
being conducted by CCI the commission gives a clean chit to this mega media merger
Where they have blatantly ignored that this merger has resulted in complete monopolisation of
services in many cities where the Cable TV service is being only provided by one single MSO in
absolute monopoly and due to getting the undue advantage of being affiliated to this joint
venture Mls Media Pro Enterprise India Pvt Ltd. Is In a monopoly situation where they have
been actively misusing their dominant position to indulge in anti competitive practices and to
further create complete monopoly on the distribution of Cable TV service and programming to
the end consumers,
They have given preferential pricing on fixed subscriber deals entered with their own partner
Cable TV MSOs, and the DTH operators who are at the moment misusing this preferential
facility extended to them by offering all the pay TV channels at Rs. 100 to the consumers under
the digitisation of the cable TV law on the STB ( Set top Boxes) procured from the public
investors money or otherwise lower rates in other cities or not providing their distributed
70
odd popular pay TV channel content to the competing MSOs service providers in order to
finish the competition and the competitors business and once they have been successful in
eliminating the competitors
they will again misuse their monopoly been created at the behest
of this joint venture to further milk the ignorant consumers
I citizens of this
country.
WHEREAS"CCI" COMPETITION COMMISSION OF INDIA gives a clean chit to this merger of Mr.
Rupert Murdoch owned STARTV Group, Mr, Subhash Chandra owned lEE TV Group and Turner,
Time Warner Group along with the Cable TV Distribution Company "DEN" that's been mentioned
about in detail earlier in this letter, without even getting in the details as to how this merger is
anti competitive and will result in.creating a complete media monopoly, eventually that will bear
unfavourable consequences for the country and its citizens.
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WHEREAS "TRAI"
TELECOM REGULATORY AUTHORITY
OF INDIA deliberately
for reasons best
known to them, don't fix any tariff or rates or a maximum retail price for the popular pay TV channels
that are being watched by the Indian public for last many years now and deliberately
been kept in forbearance
profitable
and regulations
been made, in order to commercially
specially for the above mentioned
industry
& Appellate
Tribunal"
which is
a specialized tribunal
stake holders and to appeal against any regulation
regulator,
but it has been observed that lately the tribunal
favour of the pay TV broadcasters
platforms
make business very
joint venture.
WHEREAS "TDSAT" This may come to you as a surprise, that the tribunal
Settlement
the pricing has
I channel
TDSAT "Telecom Disputes
for dispute
or tariff
redress all between
order passed by the industry
has only passed judgements
aggregators as above, and their affiliated
while Hon'ble Retd. Justice S.B Sinha has been the Chairman of this tribunal
3 months the tribunal
is been hearing matters
and passing orders without
complete quorum on the bench. (The financial magnitude
I orders
in
distribution
.
and since last
the Chairman and the
of the matters being heard at this tribunal
range from few to hundred of crores )
WHEREAS "MIB"
Broadcasting
While all this is been happening
have been keeping busy to frame
The officials
rules under amendment
favour certain big players and will help them eliminate
make business more profitable
Venture
as Advisor -
&
to Act and law that will
and MSOs that are affiliated
Where already tainted
Addl DG, All India Radio] has been appointed
of Information
the ongoing healthy competition
for these DTH operators
Mls Media Pro Enterprise.
of the Ministry
and to also
to this Joint
people like Mr. Yogendra Pal [Former
Mlo Information
& Broadcasting to do the
needful, left so far.
'Thanklng you in anticipation
of some long waited reforms in the interest of the people of this country
and strict action that may prove a deterrent for the future
Yours truly
~w\
4th
January 2013
Vik\i Choudhry
President -NCT A
Mobile # +91 9811144467
Email: [email protected]
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